Once loved Magic Kingdom has been cut up into six lots and sold off for residential buildings
THE Magic Kingdom amusement park in Lansvale in Sydney’s south west was once the go-to destination for fun lovers and families but the sprawling site has now been sold off.
NSW
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OH, ho, ho — it was magic. Once the go-to destination for fun lovers and families in the west, the abandoned Lansvale amusement park known as The Magic Kingdom now sits idle — and has done for more than 25 years — while being periodically chopped up and sold off.
After being closed down, the sprawling 150,000 square metre site on Hollywood Drive which once played host to theme park rides, families’ birthday and Christmas parties and children’s laughter, was cut up into six separate lots which have been gradually sold down over a number of years.
Now the former fun park is seen as a long-term business investment and future location for residential buildings.
Magic Kingdom operated from the 1970s right through until well into the ’90s, but was ultimately forced to close its gates for good after being unable to match the soaring success of its Eastern Creek rival, Wonderland.
While only small, Magic Kingdom featured more than 15 rides, including open water slides, a giant slippery dip, radio-controlled cars as well as a picnic and barbecue area for family shindigs for the mind-bogglingly low entry price of just $6.
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The Big Shoe was also a popular attraction for kids to explore, and the large lake in the middle of the property was once teeming with petrol-powered mini-boats and paddleboats.
However, the once popular holiday hotspot has long since been deserted, and is now overgrown and regularly hit by vandals and graffiti taggers, despite still being littered with the rusted remnants of its old carnival rides and playgrounds.
Its once popular yellow slippery-slide is now rusted brown with gaping holes in the safety wall and weeds blanketing its tail end.
The decay still hasn’t stopped some foolhardy locals from continuing to use the slide at their own risk — with flimsy crates left scattered at the bottom of the slide for the next intruders ready to try their luck.
The forgotten theme park also features in some urban ghost tales, possibly due to its acquisition of several rides from Luna Park in the wake of the tragic Ghost Train Fire in 1979, which killed seven people at the popular harbourside location.
According to Liverpool locals, a creepy night time visit to the area had become something of a rite of passage, but it is unlikely to spook new investors from developing the land.
Director of CBRE’s industrial and logistics team Keegan Ridings recently sold the last 20,000 square metre block of the Magic Kingdom theme park to a buyer who is using the area as a hobby farm, while a majority of the landowners are passive land bankers who are hoping the area can be rezoned.
One owner currently uses the site to store building materials.
“The view from most of them is that it’s just big blocks of dirt surrounded by residential, and they are hoping that at some stage down the track they will be able to build residential on there,” Mr Ridings said.